Field of the Invention (Technical Field)
The present invention relates to a method to adjust or tune mechanical settings of a mammography apparatus. The invention further relates to such a mammography apparatus.
Description of Related Art
WO2011/102713 discloses a mammography apparatus comprising an x-ray source, a paddle and a detector with a detector cover. The known mammography apparatus is floorstanding and comprises a mainframe that supports a subframe in which the x-ray source, the paddle and the detector are mounted. In such a known mammography apparatus it is day to day practice to place and compress a patient's breast between the detector and the paddle before executing an x-ray measurement in order to optimize the image quality and minimize the required x-ray doses. During the procedure the patient is standing next to the mammograph. The compression is applied by bringing the patient's breast in between the x-ray detector and the paddle, which paddle can thereafter be lowered in the direction and relative to the detector by hand or by activating a motor built in the mammography apparatus. It is commonly known that this procedure may inflict serious pain on the patient.
US2006/0245541 discloses a floorstanding mammography apparatus comprising a mainframe in which a subframe is mounted that supports an x-ray source, a paddle and a detector with a detector cover, wherein before executing an x-ray measurement a patients breast is placed and compressed between the detector cover and the paddle. This document acknowledges the pain experienced by a patient and teaches to reduce this pain by first positioning the breast on the detector cover, then move the paddle down to obtain less than full desired compression, followed by moving the detector cover up until the full desired compression is achieved. As a result the level of the shearing and compressive forces exerted on the breast will be more distributed and balanced. A problem of this known solution is that the size and types of patient's breasts vary so considerably that the required distance of movement of the detector cover and the paddle varies. Another point of variation is that a technician must determine the required compression for each individual breast, which is done through training and experience. Based on his training and experience the technician must determine the movement of the paddle and the subsequent movement of the detector cover to obtain the full desired compression of the breast. It goes without saying that in practice the results of this known operator-dependent method will be most of the time suboptimal in terms of pain experienced by the patient, and far from reproducible.